You'll want to eat this chicken fat-infused butter from the spoon. We're not sure if you should, but you'll want to.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about butter. I mean, It’s butter. It’s fatty, salty, and simple. It spreads better when it's left at room temperature. It should be melted over a steak when it's resting. That was the extent of my butter education before I walked into Nightbell in Asheville, NC, and ate something called chicken butter. Chicken butter changed me.

Chef Katie Button, author of the new book Cúrate, placed a plate of butter on the bar at Nightbell and handed over a small spoon. No bread. No waffle. Nothing. “Go for it. Trust me,” she said. I scooped up a bit of the cappuccino-colored frosting-like substance, and went for it.

Katie Button's Nightbell, in Assheville, NC. Photograph by Erin Adams

It was delicious. Let’s just get that out of the way. I went for second and third spoonfuls unashamedly. Chef Button uses sorghum (a sweet syrup made from sorghum leaves that resembles molasses), which she dubs “the maple syrup of Appalachia,” to give the butter a little sweetness. Then she whips it into an airy frosting-like consistency. The real MVP here though is the chicken fat that’s whipped into the butter. It gives the spread a subtle meatiness and depth of flavor that moves beyond just salty and creamy—which is how I found myself eating it by the spoonful.

But where did the idea come from? “The basis of Appalachian food comes from limited food waste and a need to be able to stock up and store food for the year,” explained Button. “When people think of Appalachia, most think of poverty. Unfortunately, while researching our area, I found this particular stereotype to be true. One in four children in Buncombe County are food insecure, meaning they don't know where their next meal is coming from.”

So rendering chicken fat, an ingredient that can be stored for about a month in the fridge and indefinitely in the freezer, helps use up the whole animal, and can be stockpiled for later uses.

Carbs: chicken butter's best friend. Photograph by Erin Adams

Make Your Own Chicken Butter, Be an All-Around Happier Person

As it turns out, my newfound addiction can be easily maintained, because chicken butter is pretty easy to make. The only part of the process that actually takes some involvement is rendering your chicken fat. To gain access to your chicken’s glorious fat, you want to cut raw chicken skin into small pieces and heat them in a pan over low heat, adding a tablespoon of water for every cup of chicken fat (to keep the skin from burning). Once that fat renders out, you can strain it into some jars and throw it in the fridge. You can also pick some up at the butcher if you're feeling especially lazy.

In the meantime, cut ½ pound (2 sticks) of unsalted butter into small cubes and let them soften at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Take your softened butter and combine it with ⅓ cup of chicken fat, 4 tsp of sorghum, and 1 tsp of salt in a metal mixing bowl. Using a whisk attachment on a hand or standing mixer, whip it until consistency reaches that of a fluffy cake frosting. You can then spoon it into bowl or spread it onto a plate and garnish with flaky sea salt, chopped chives, and thyme leaves.

Chicken butter can be used just like you would any other butter. Throw some on top of a crispy baguette, roasted potatoes, a slab of cornbread, a stack of pancakes, or some grilled corn on the cob. Adding chicken fat and sorghum to your everyday non-Appalachian butter is a game changer. Butter doesn’t have to just be butter; it can be butter you eat from a spoon when no one (or everyone) is watching.